Key Findings On Land Use

The need to further integrate EU land objectives in the four policy areas (the Cohesion Policy, Transport Policy, Energy Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy) was identified.

Those four EU policies have major impacts on land use, providing an opportunity to integrate better land use practices across the entire EU, and across borders.

Without these EU policies, coherent and effective integration of land use practices cannot be possible.

The report also identified the increased covering up of soil by concrete or pavement (soil sealing), the fragmentation of the landscape due to transport networks, and land degradation due to intensive agriculture and biofuel production, as key challenges.

Future policy making on land should consider setting targets on better land use as part of new EU policy on land as a resource. These can help prevent degradation and other negative impacts. The use of environmental impact assessments should be reinforced.

Placing a monetary value on the ecosystem services lost through land take and land degradation should also be considered as part of an EU policy making, assessment and evaluation process.